• cosecantphi [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    What's even the idea here? That they can trick customers into thinking things are normal by putting this up? I feel like this just draws even more attention to the shortage. I wouldn't think twice if the store were simply out of asparagus, but seeing this would be weird.

    • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      If the customers in the store I used to work at were any indication, the only people who are going to notice it's not real asparagus will be the ones who try to reach for it. Nearly every customer I interacted with was in a kind of exhausted haze and just wanted to get in and get out. It's an optical illusion that will work on nearly everyone.

      • cawsby [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        It is why online stores show you things that are out of stock that most closely resemble your search.

        They want you to know that they are "capable" of getting the items you want, even if they don't have them.

      • alcoholicorn [comrade/them, doe/deer]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        I feel like people would be more likely to buy other things in higher quantities if you drew attention to what's low/out of stock.

        Eg, when TP was low during the start of covid, people bought more TP, paper towels, baby wipes, etc.

      • pisshuffer_supreme [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        Idk, I thought the reason they have people working is to produce surplus value since self checkout is constant capital unless I misread this (its 2am)

        • SoyViking [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Self-checkout still requires labour, it just makes it possible for one worker to work eight registers instead of one, thereby increasing productivity and enabling greater exploitation of labor.

    • AntipastoAktion [they/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Managers justifying their existence. Same mentality that drives Boomers to keep their houses in absolutely flawless tidiness seen only in furniture catalogues, where there's no indication that anyone ever lives there. They're trying to uphold this image of a Well Run Store [tm] because if The Store is good then The Manager did good. Just that weird like, petit boug/middle class pagentry shit.

    • inshallah2 [none/use name]
      hexagon
      ·
      3 years ago

      What’s even the idea here?

      It makes no sense to me either. They should just put up a sign saying something like "asparagus unavailable". Somebody seeing that nonsense from a distance might think they have asparagus, walk towards it, and then realize they've been played. If that were me - I'd be really annoyed.